Why the Time to Take a Stand Against Aluminum is Now

Many in the scientific community will not be surprised by recent research that underscores aluminum’s toxicity and its ability to negatively impact human health, particularly through the development of autoimmune and age-related neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. Aluminum’s toxicity has been studied for decades, yet public support for reducing aluminum exposure—particularly exposure via vaccine adjuvants—has lagged due to lack of awareness and misinformation campaigns about aluminum’s natural presence in the environment and ways we are exposed to natural vs. bioavailable forms.

These concepts take a modest investment of time to understand, and most parents are willing to invest this time for the benefit of their children and to protect their own health. It becomes a question of knowing where to turn and who to trust for this important information. Much health information parents are given is “dumbed-down” and disrespects their ability to grasp key differences in how we are exposed to aluminum and the different forms of aluminum we are exposed to. In that sense, the medical community has taken advantage of the lack of public awareness, and betrayed their obligation to do no harm.

Natural aluminum is highly prevalent in the earth’s crust, but is not generally bioavailable, or absorbable by any living creature on earth. This aluminum is tightly bound to other elements in the earth’s crust, and poses no harm to us. When methods to extract elemental aluminum were developed in the late 1800’s, which involve extremely high heat and toxic compounds, different forms of aluminum than those found in nature were created, and these forms are bioavailable and highly toxic.

Another major difference is how we come into contact with aluminum, or routes of exposure. We are exposed to aluminum in the air that we breathe, in products we apply to our skin, in foods we eat, medicines we take, and vaccines we inject. More rarely used are aluminum containing feeding solutions given to premature infants and sick patients who cannot consume food by mouth.

These different routes of exposure have drastically differing rates of toxicity and absorption. Injected aluminum is 100% absorbed and little is excreted. It is designed to stick around in the body for years to maintain the immune response. Unfortunately, regulators never studied where the aluminum travels to once it is injected, as they simply made assumptions that the aluminum remains at the injection site. But scientists in France have studied this, and they discovered that aluminum nanoparticles quickly enter the blood, lymph, brain and spleen. This new knowledge is being ignored by health authorities, despite the serious implications of this discovery.

Intravenous feeding solutions have been given more scrutiny, as human data has been collected on the toxicity of aluminum entering the bloodstream via parenteral solutions. Developmental delays and kidney failure have been observed, resulting in stricter limits on the amount of aluminum that can be present in these solutions, but regulators have not eliminated it entirely.

Antacids are another dangerous route of exposure for two reasons. One, is that the amount of aluminum hydroxide in a single dose of antacid can reach 600 milligrams. If many doses are taken in a day, this poses a serious risk especially if used over long periods. In tiny print on the package insert, that few people read, are warnings about long-term use leading to dementia. In addition, orally ingested aluminum can alter the stomach PH, making the stomach lining more permeable to toxins, increasing the dangers of absorption. Despite warnings of dementia, the FDA considers it safe to inject newborns with aluminum. Makes you wonder!

Topical aluminum such as found in antiperspirants and sunscreens have been linked to increased rates of breast and skin cancer. Sport brands that advertise 24 hour protection often have much higher levels of aluminum, and the practice of shaving increases the absorption further. A single application of sunscreen can contain 5 grams of aluminum. How much ends up being absorbed is unknown, but it undoubtedly increases the amount of aluminum in our bodies. What we do know is that since the advent of increased sunscreen use, rates of skin cancer have increased rather than decreased. Yet no one at the FDA is connecting the dots here.

Aluminum in foods and beverages are almost entirely excreted, and what little remains is likely being deposited in bone. Our biliary system protects us from aluminum that is added to foods, usually as emulsifiers or drying agents, so that very little aluminum from food is retained. This key fact is distorted in articles that promote the safety of vaccines, and is a monumental difference as to why injected aluminum, despite its relatively smaller quantity, exacts a greater harm to our health than ingested aluminum.

Parents are increasingly seeing through this fallacy, and learning that aluminum does not belong in our bodies. An educated parent is empowered to make better decisions, and CMSRI believes that increased independent research, education and outreach and protecting parents’ rights to make educated vaccine choices will provide greater protection for overall health than the current one-size-fits all CDC recommendations.

Scientists and organizations like the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute have been contributing to our increased knowledge of aluminum and how it affects our health. On the heels of groundbreaking research that shows the removal of aluminum from the body helped improve memory and cognitive function in some individuals with early-stage Alzheimer’s, the “People’s Trial for the People’s Cure” crowdsourcing campaign has been launched to raise public awareness and accrue donations for more in-depth clinical research.

For those new to this ongoing conversation about aluminum, aluminum is not only associated with Alzheimer’s disease, but autism, cancer, and a host of debilitating autoimmune disorders. These conditions have been increasing in prevalence in recent decades, just as our exposure to aluminum has increased. Today, we are exposed to increasing amounts of aluminum via the foods we consume, the water we drink, the beauty products we apply, the household cleaners we use, and a growing number of routine vaccinations. Even more concerning is the fact that the United States reigns as the world’s largest and most profitable manufacturer of aluminum.

The Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute, an array of leading researchers in diverse fields, and supporters of the People’s Trial aim to reduce this level of exposure through increased knowledge of aluminum’s detrimental effects. Though the CDC may assert that our exposure to aluminum should not raise concerns, science proves that aluminum maintains the potential to negatively impact a human’s health, regardless of how exposure occurred or where aluminum deposits end up in the body. Professor Christopher Exley, also known in the scientific community as “Mr. Aluminum,” intends to put his 30 years of experience researching aluminum to use by conducting a long-term clinical study of aluminum toxicity, pending that necessary funds from the People’s Trial campaign be secured. A clinical study conducted on a broader scale would secure for the scientific community further evidence that aluminum maintains a direct causal connection to adverse health events like Alzheimer’s disease.

The Takeaway: Now is the time to take a stand against aluminum for a number reasons, including the momentum of new groundbreaking research, the increasing prevalence of autoimmune and neurodevelopmental disorders, and the persistent refusal of industry and government leaders to recognize aluminum’s toxicity.

Infants can easily receive more aluminum than the FDA’s recommended amount by receiving vaccines with aluminum adjuvants like Hepatitis B, Rotavirus, DPT, HiB, PCV, and IPV combination vaccines on the same day.